Investigations of prehistoric burial sites in Europe indicate that the region's population may have practiced ritual human sacrifice, according to a new study.
The large number of multiple-burial sites, some containing skeletons of dwarfs and deformed children with ornate burial offerings such as ivory beads, suggests that human sacrifice was a custom in Europe in the period between 28,000 and 10,000 years ago, said biologist Vincenzo Formicola of the University of Pisa.
"These findings point to the possibility that human sacrifices were part of the ritual activity of these populations," Formicola wrote.
Uh-oh. James Denson Sayers won't be pleased:
There is nothing to indicate that human sacrifice had a part in the rituals of the early Mayan civilization, but this horribly degenerate practice came more and more into use as the mongrelization process went on until it was claiming thousands of victims yearly when the Europeans came. Rarely has a White people been guilty of this terrible form of religion. In the most outstanding example where it was in use among a White people, namely, in Carthage, its greatest development came there in the last days of the city when the blood of the people was already heavily loaded with that of the Black, and, as in the later days of ancient Egypt, the priesthood was probably mongrel. The sacrifice of human beings to Moloch never reached such devastating proportions among the ancient Phoenicians as it did in their last mongrelized descendants of North Africa.
But wait! Maybe Mr. Sayers won't have to give up on his racist assumptions after all!
Rupert Housley, a professor of archaeological science at the University of Glasgow, suggested in a telephone interview that there may be other explanations for the unique inhumation, or burial. The beads may have been family heirlooms, prepared years earlier for a person of high status and incorporated into the graves of the children.
Housley, who is conducting a study in southern Russia on the connection between Neanderthals and modern humans, said that evidence of cannibalism has been found at sites 12,000 years ago in the same area, which could suggest a pattern.
But he said multiple burials were common in the period Formicola is investigating, and many children died at a young age.
...
Richard Klein, an anthropological science professor at Stanford University, called the findings interesting but lacking substance.
"The sample is too small to draw that conclusion," Klein said. "I'm not against the idea, but there is no link between the burials and anything with human behavior. They're far apart and come from different cultures."
Whew. That's a load off the mind -- what? What's that you say, Julius Caesar?
All the people of Gaul are completely devoted to religion, and for this reason those who are greatly affected by diseases and in the dangers of battle either sacrifice human victims or vow to do so using the Druids as administrators to these sacrifices, since it is judged that unless for a man's life a man's life is given back, the will of the immortal gods cannot be placated. In public affairs they have instituted the same kind of sacrifice. Others have effigies of great size interwoven with twigs, the limbs of which are filled up with living people which are set on fire from below, and the people are deprived of life surrounded by flames. It is judged that the punishment of those who participated in theft or brigandage or other crimes are more pleasing to the immortal gods; but when the supplies of this kind fail, they even go so low as to inflict punishment on the innocent.
Stupid reality, getting in the way of Sayers' preconceived notions of the innate morality of different races!
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